ABOUT THIS SERIES

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Controversial coach Mike Woodbury is once again offering youth basketball training and college placement, this time using a public gym in the Port St. Lucie Civic Center to teach Treasure Coast kids. 

His Aug. 12 program launch was advertised on social media, charging $20 per player for 1½ hour, semiweekly workshops that draw about a dozen kids, city records show. 

It comes nearly a year after a recording of his vulgar berating of a former player from Haiti went viral, drawing blistering criticism from the sports community nationwide and prompting people and organizations to sever ties with him and the private Christian school he headed at the time. 

His tirade, his criminal record and his history of inappropriate verbal and physical treatment of children, including sexual talk, isn’t enough to stop him from using the taxpayer-funded venue for free.

“City management is obligated to operate this public facility under the purview of local, state and federal laws,” Port St. Lucie spokesperson Sarah Prohaska said, adding no one has complained about his use of the gym. “There is nothing in the city’s current policy that would prevent Mr. Woodbury from using the city’s facilities.”

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The city previously grappled with questions about him and The Nation Christian Academy he was running when his tirade became public in late 2018. Deputy City Attorney Caroline Valentin in February concluded Mayor Gregory Oravec and the City Council had no regulatory authority over either.

Short of filing complaints with the police or Florida Department of Children and Families, there wasn’t much local governments could do, the mayor told complainants.

“I have come to believe that the most expedient way to deal with this type of situation is not to petition the government, but for the parents to take action,” namely boycotting, he wrote. “No students, no school.”

History of impropriety 

“I’m pretty vulgar,” Woodbury told TCPalm a year ago, in response to the backlash against his tirade. “The F-word is common in my vocabulary … It is who I am. I coach the way I coach. I lead the way I lead.”

He did not answer current questions TCPalm emailed and mailed to his Jensen Beach condo and the St. Lucie Golf Range he now manages, with one signed return receipt, and he stopped responding to multiple requests for an interview made over several weeks via phone, emails, texts and letters.

His tirade is why the Amateur Athletic Union, a national youth sports organization, severed ties, AAU spokesperson Rachel D’Orazio told TCPalm in June. But it was no surprise to those who said they suffered him for over 15 years in the youth basketball community in his native Maine. 

“Someone please stop this man from coaching at this level,” Pam Barker, the mother of twin daughters he coached, wrote in an open letter she emailed to the AAU and others in May 2005; it resurfaced online after his tirade. “He does not belong working with young people.” 

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Three players, including one of Barker’s daughters, confirmed the claims in her six-page letter, telling TCPalm they quit the team after witnessing or directly experiencing Woodbury commonly:

• Biting girls on the face, neck and forehead
• Calling girls over a dozen profane and sexualized names 
• Asking girls — all 15 or younger — whether they were having sex and what they had done
• Starting conversations about masturbation and slang terms for sex acts and anatomy
• Going into the girls’ away-game hotel room without parents present, wearing nothing but gym shorts and getting in their bed, under the covers. 

“He was all about talking about sex,” Tanna Ross said in June. “He always found a way to insert himself in the middle of the conversation.” 

He told the girls to keep the sex talk a secret, Chelsea Barker-Walsh said this month. “I witnessed a lot of sexual harassment against (my teammates),” she said. “He was verbally abusive.”

He crossed boundaries most male coaches of young female players did not, Emily Rousseau said.

“He was very physical with us,” she said this month, calling his behavior “aggressive” and “deranged.”

“If he wanted you to move on the court, he would push you, pull you, poke you, grab you by a jersey and pull you, drag you by your ponytail to the scorer’s table. … He would grab your face and bite your cheek.”

Nothing came of Barker’s letter after she sent it to the AAU and MBR.org, an online forum for discussing high school sports in Maine. His behavior was an expected part of being on his team, Ross said. 

“Woody is who he is,” was a common refrain among MBR.org’s mostly anonymous contributors, who debated his behavior over the years, dating back to 2008. Critics said he shouldn’t be tolerated and defenders said parents had free will to choose their kids’ coach.

“I have seen firsthand his ability to take a confident young athlete and destroy their belief in themselves,” Barker wrote, later telling TCPalm, “I wanted other parents to know, I wanted them to be aware. After that, if they chose to play for him, that was their choice.”

Mainer warned Florida 

Woodbury’s rap sheet dates to at least 1995, when he pleaded guilty to theft.

Maine’s reports are mostly incomplete or confidential, with no available details of that or other incidents or case outcomes. He was charged in three assaults, with records showing only that:

• The court dismissed a 2001 case on the condition he not contact the victim.
• The court dismissed a 2006 case because prosecutors didn’t charge him.
• He pleaded guilty to a later 2006 case of grabbing a mechanic by the shirt and threatening him, his wife, his family, his business. The court ordered anger management training, no more contact with the victim and a $1,000 donation to each of two youth recreational programs. 

After he moved to Florida 13 years later, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office received a letter titled “Maine Citizens for the Safety and Welfare of Minors,” pleading for her to investigate Woodbury and his treatment of students at The Nation Christian Academy in Port St. Lucie.

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Chris Rogers told TCPalm he authored the letter based on his experience as a parent and coach who often encountered Woodbury at youth basketball tournaments in Maine. He described a “steady string … of altercations with players, parents, basketball officials, tournament organizers, and even innocent bystanders and fans.”

He recounted Woodbury’s physical attack on a parent, captured in a video the Portland Press Herald published in 2015. He was banned from the community college campus, but faced no charges.

“Woodbury was ostracized in these parts enough that he fled from north to south in hopes of starting back up in a land where his heinous reputation was not instantly known,” Rogers wrote. “This façade needs to be shut down before any other innocent young people that are currently under his demonic ‘tutelage’ are exploited.”

Bondi’s staff did not act on the complaint, according to a spokesperson for the office.

“This coach’s tirade is unacceptable and this complaint … could have been dealt with differently,” Kylie Mason said in May. Now-Attorney General Ashley Moody “has ordered her Citizens Services Office to promptly forward any issues that need further review.” 

Tumultuous three years 

Woodbury has tried to make The Nation a successful brand that guarantees college placement, but stops short of promising scholarships or prestigious schools. While some laud his ability to coach and send players to Division I college basketball teams, his failings in Florida are mounting.

He initially leased space at SportsWorld in Stuart, which the YMCA of the Treasure Coast since has sold.

“I would not … pursue any type of relationship with him again,” was all YMCA President and CEO John Lass would say when asked about the staff’s short-lived experience with Woodbury in March 2016.

What followed — at least four failed sports training programs mired in evictions, lspanwsuits and stspante investigspantions — has been well-documented in 35 stories TCPalm has published since Woodbury took over the 22-year-old school he shuttered in April, formerly called Barnabas, just before leasing the St. Lucie Golf Range.

TCPalm also reported on code violspantions there and his charge of selling spanlcohol without span license to undercover agents in May. He plespanded no contest and paid a $873 fine. 

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Heart for forgiveness

Despite Woodbury’s bad reputation, his good reputation sometimes overshadows it.

“He made a lot of big promises about how he had all these connections to college scholarships and coaches. I think that’s a big reason why people ignore the reputation and play for him anyway,” Rousseau said. “It’s all BS. It’s all smoke and mirrors.”

Barker-Walsh feels more conflicted, saying while there is no excuse for the way he treated players, he probably helped her. 

“It’s hard for me to say, I feel strange about it,” she said. “I’m not sure I would have been a D1 [Division 1] player without him.”

Chris Maxon brought his twin seventh-grade sons to the Civic Center workouts this fall, after players on the Fort Pierce Central High School varsity boys basketball team he coaches told him about Woodbury.

“I’m always concerned with who my kids are surrounded by,” Maxon said. “But I have a heart for forgiveness, I judge people by how they treat me.” 

Maxon said Woodbury treated him and his sons well and their experience was upbeat and positive, nothing like his bad reputation, which is superseded by his knowledge of the sport. 

“I’m impressed with how he works on the fundamentals,” Maxon said. “I wanted to give my kids a good workout and it’s good to hear a different coach’s perspective.”

In their own words

On scholarships and placement:

“He made a lot of big promises about how he had all these connections to college scholarship and coaches, I think that’s a big reason why people ignore the reputation and play for him anyway. He makes it seem like he is key to getting a college scholarship, he makes it happen for you, that it’s not the kid who gets it. A lot of parents who haven’t been through that process don’t know any better. I thought that too. I was totally into, like, I’m going to get a scholarship. Being on the other side of it, it’s all the player, he makes you think it’s all about him, it’s not. It’s all BS, he doesn’t have nearly as many connections as he claimed. The coach I played for the next year had many more D1 connections. A lot of it was BS, smoke and mirrors. He made it seem like he was key to the scholarship.” — Emily Rousseau, interview with TCPalm

“He would tell the players that he “held the key” to their success and that he could either promote them or not to college coaches. For some parents and players I think this was his biggest tool. He used the idea of getting college scholarships to keep people in line.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“I would also like to add that I am not of the opinion that the AAU organization would be proud of the fact that many of us as parents who have had inquiries from colleges regarding our daughters and seeing them play at tournaments under Mr. Woodbury, would appreciate the fact that we don’t feel comfortable in listing Mr. Woodbury as our AAU coach/contact regarding our children because we aren’t confident that Mr. Woodbury has the BEST interests of the players at heart when communicating with these colleges, which is a shame in itself. It is my opinion that when you have a coach who manipulates his/her players against each other to send a message to the parents that it is indeed the coach who has the control and controls who plays and who doesn’t for whatever reason(s), versus playing and teaching the game of basketball the way it was meant to be utilizing players based on their abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and when you don’t have the best interest of your players at heart, it is time to move on and that time is now for Mr. Woodbury.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

On Woodbury’s coaching style:

“The best way to describe him would be deranged, honestly. He was very physical with us, more so than any other male coach I’ve had. Most other male coaches I’ve had are very aware. If he wanted you to move on the court, he would push you, pull you, poke you, grab you by a jersey and pull you. Drag you by your ponytail to the scorer’s table.” — Emily Rousseau, interview with TCPalm

“He was very aggressive I would say. He was a yeller, screamer type of coach. I actually became a better basketball player when I played for Woody. He did have great drills, he did know his stuff as far as X’s and O’s. I responded well to being coached. His coaching style wasn’t always basketball related. For example, pulling someone’s hair when you’re subbing them. That’s not coaching to me. He would do that to the girls who were pretty. I witnessed a lot of sexual harassment against my sister, against Emily Rousseau.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm

“Coaching helps with character development, that happens off the court. He tore us down, he did it in a very abusive way.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm

“He would play mind games with the girls when it came to substituting them for each other and “threaten” them so to speak if they didn’t make his basketball team their top priority, regardless of any other activities, or sports that they might be involved in.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

On biting and physical treatment:

“He would bite our faces. He bit me, he bit Tanna [Ross], he bit Amanda Barker, he would grab your face and bite your cheek. It didn’t feel romantic, just aggressive and deranged.” — Emily Rousseau, interview with TCPalm

“He was verbally abusive, he would scream and throw things.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm

“He would bite people. He never did it to me. But he did it to Amanda and Emily. For Amanda, he did it at an AAU tournament and rumors started flying that he’s making out with his players. He would lick people’s cheeks, it was weird. He’s a pervert. He thinks he’s invincible. He’s a pervert, he sexually harassed the pretty players.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm

“He also often would grab, hit, whack at, pat or just pull on the girls when he would substitute them in games…at times he would smack them on the bottom, something else I did not deem to be appropriate but yet since he feels that his intentions were honorable that it was okay.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“In another incident while practicing at Howard’s Sports Center in Saco, Mr. Woodbury grabbed my daughter and playfully bit her on the face while she was standing at the water fountain. Other team members were around but what Mr. Woodbury didn’t realize was that a parent who was walking by at that moment in time mistook Mr. Woodbury’s playful act as a “passionate kiss” and the rumors flew and by the weekend when we played a tournament there everyone was talking about Coach Woodbury kissing my daughter…we were approached by another parent and told what they had heard from the parent who had observed it. I asked my daughter about it and she said that Coach was just playing around and that he always bites them on the face, neck, and forehead. This was the first time I had heard of such a thing as he never did this in front of parents. After the rumors were curtailed he didn’t learn from it, he also bit two other players on two separate occasions during “horseplay.”” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“The verbal abuse was bad enough, but he would also get outraged and throw things, such as bottles of water, balls, travel bags cell phones and he even pulled a players hair when he was angry with her for not following his orders while on a trip during leisure time, and nothing to do with basketball.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“He also took a players travel bag and emptied it out and threw all of her belongings all over her room because she couldn’t find a hair brush and wasn’t ready in time to leave when Mr. Woodbury wanted to leave the hotel for a non-team outing. He has made many of his players cry on many occasions and I have seen firsthand his ability to take a confident young athlete and destroy their belief in themselves. Each and every player on his team has stories to tell about Mr. Woodbury, he left no player free to fully enjoy the AAU experience.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

On secrecy, sex talks and hotel rooms:

“The girly-girls, he would insert himself into conversations, what they did with their boyfriends. The players who were more feminine, that was hard to watch, especially with one of them being my sister.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm

“He would initiate the conversation. He would either initiate or insert himself. For example, for the prom or school dances, he would ask, did they put out. He would ask those kinds of questions, he would ask what they would do sexually with their boyfriends. He would talk about masturbation, how long he could last. It was just really weird stuff to be talking about on a bus ride. He would do it in a manner he thought was funny, but he was serious. He would talk about sexual acts, like oral sex, masturbation. If we were in the hotel and we were watching movies, and there was kissing or something in the movie, he would always say something. He had his shirt off with players.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm

“His behavior was more appropriate when parents were around. He actually requested that parents not travel, he wanted parents not around. He actually told players to not tell their parents things. On the bus, in hotel rooms, he would say he wanted to talk about the game, but he would just mess around. Any chance to be inappropriate, he would.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm

“I did witness and know that he would frequently hop himself into a bed whether a player was in it or not and ask hey, what are we watching, things a coach would never do, especially a male coach. He had nothing but shorts on. Even if there was a player who had just gotten out of the shower and was under the covers. It was just weird.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm

“ … (H)e preferred to interact with the girls individually and they in turn would relay to their parents what Mr. Woodbury deemed they “needed to know.” He made it clear to the girls that their parents didn’t need to know “everything” that he was saying to them or about them. For me, as a parent, when adult tells a child that they don’t need to be telling their parents everything that goes on, it is of concern to me.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“It wasn’t long before some of the topics of discussion between the players on his team and this coach I did not deem to be appropriate, things like what they did/do with their boyfriends, if they even had boyfriends, what their sexual habits might be, and he only asked those whom he “assumed” might be sexually active. He would ask if they went to a dance/prom if they “got lucky” and he inquired about one of his players sexual orientation on more than one occasion. If you were a player who had a boyfriend you were considered a “sperm bank” but if you didn’t have a boyfriend, you were referred to as a “dirty dyke.” He also led a conversation about masturbation while he had all of his player’s attention on the team bus without parents in between games at a tournament. Some of the talks were around things that kids might talk about amongst themselves in a school/peer setting but Mr. Woodbury would jump right in on any conversations that the girls might have between themselves and he would promote more talk on the subject whether it was inappropriate or not, it didn’t matter. In order words, he put himself in the middle of situations that didn’t involve him or anything to do regarding basketball. One example would be of slang names or phrases regarding sexual activities including the size of male genitalia or having oral sex. This parent feels that Mr. Woodbury should have never involved himself along with the girls in these types of topics of conversation.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“Other “red flag” occurrences were, to name a few…watching movies with the girls in a hotel room with no other adult supervision, dressed only in his gym shorts. He would also lay on the bed with the girls and I found him under the covers at one point on a trip that I was present on, and I told him that if he was cold he should put more clothing on, but that didn’t seem to phase him, and he didn’t take the hint as you couldn’t really tell Woody anything.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“(T)hese things are just not what coaches do with their players, no matter there intentions are.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“I was present except for one occasion where only one of my daughter’s went on a trip, otherwise there was no way that I felt comfortable enough to send my girls on their own on any of these ill supervised trips.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

On name-calling and inappropriate language:

“He made a ton of inappropriate comments. He called us sperm banks, he told the African American girl there was going to be a hate crime. Those kind of comments were normal.” — Emily Rousseau, interview with TCPalm

“[The less feminine girls he would call] dirty dykes. Tanna and I were tomboyish. Girly-girls were sperm banks. It was all very inappropriate for when we were in high school.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm 

“He was very insensitive and discriminatory. He had no issue talking about race and sexual orientation. He had no problem voicing his opinions about all of that. He was more mindful when parents were around, when they weren’t it was like a free for all.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm

“In a conversation with my daughter around other members of the team, he referred to her as a “sperm bank” and when he was told that this was not acceptable behavior not only by me but by another parent, he said he didn’t mean anything by it and that he would apologize to my daughter and not do it again…an apology was never made and two weeks hadn’t gone by before he once again called her a “sperm bank” in another conversation. She was not the only one, he referred to another team member as being a “sperm bank” when a discussion ensued about her boyfriend and Mr. Woodbury labeled him a “Guido”. The young lady told Mr. Woodbury to shut up, and he replied with “you shut up sperm bank.” The team bus went silent, Mr. Woodbury’s wife nudged him from the front passenger seat and reminded him that he wasn’t supposed to used that phrase.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“He made many racial remarks including those made towards a player we had on the team who was black. She is no longer with the team, she walked away before we did although it was not for that reason.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“Mr. Woodbury has a very foul mouth and doesn’t hesitate to express his opinions with it. He would belittle and demean the girls both on and off the court. Some of these things I would hear myself, while other phrases were said to the kids when parents were not around. Some of the phrases and words he utilized are as follows: [TCPalm deleted a dozen expletives, some beginning with fat, lazy and stupid] Guido, and ‘I feel a hate crime coming on’ are some of the verbiage that Mr. Woodbury would use.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“The other major incident that sticks out in my mind and upset me the most was when he called a young lady on the team a “dumb [expletive]”. That situation occurred when he was off alone with her and they were playing basketball and he wanted her to play another kid in the gym a game of one on one…the young lady didn’t feel up to it but Woody coerced her to play and then made a monetary bet with the other player that “his player” could beat them, well Woody’s player lost the game and he lost his money and went ballistic on her calling her names and telling her how good for nothing she was and that she was a [expletive].” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

“He would also be disrespectful and demean and undermind some player’s parents…one example would be on the weekend that we walked away from this team he told one player while one of my daughters and she were sitting on the bench that “her mother was no better than the other parents and that she was a two faced [expletive]” which upset this player as it did my daughter to hear him be disrespectful like that. What kind of person does and says these things to young people??? Mr. Woodbury has to be stopped.” — Pam Barker, 2005 letter

On why most people didn’t speak up at the time (beyond writing the letter):

“There isn’t really a governing body that can really do anything about it. Nothing really happened. With AAU every program kind of does its own thing.” — Emily Rousseau, interview with TCPalm

“People didn’t feel like it was going to go anywhere, it was going to be a lot of he said, she said. It was hard to actually prove any of it. Also, we all knew just how crazy he was. … Woody always, always threatened people with litigation. He used fear to try and scare people. A lot of that too is parents didn’t want to deal with the drama, he brings a lot of drama to the table.” — Emily Rousseau, interview with TCPalm

“It’s a well-known thing that he was the way he was. Nobody did anything about it. People would just quit the team and that was the answer. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t people or parents that said something, I’m just not aware.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm

“So many players came and went very quickly, turn over with him was very quick. I can’t think of anyone else for any length of time.” — Chelsea Barker-Walsh, interview with TCPalm